The Barbados PSVs seems to be a hot topic these days, I got a voice note I want to share with you, I have transcribed it so forgive any spelling issues.
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So we’re back here again? Yeah that happens when you're on a merry go round - you go round and round and come back to the same point over and over again.

But if you do it long enough you may become giddy. I am giddy from this PSV merry go round. We have been on it for 40 years and it is going nowhere.

Why don't the powers that be just come to us and say quite simply. We do not have the balls to fix the public transportation system. For what else could it be but the lack of will and balls when for the last 40 years we find ourselves agonizing over the same problems.

Forty years years ago we were talking about the bad behaviour of the PSV people. The reckless driving, the crawling, the milk shakes, the loud and sometimes vulgar music.

Today 40 years later we are still talking about those things, only recently a school girl lost one of her hands owing to the recklessness of a driver. She's now partially disabled because those to whom we entrusted leadership lack the will to grapple with a serious social malady.

Today 40 years later commuters in Barbados who have no choice but to take these vehicles must sit through the ordeal of moving at 10 miles an hour while the driver bides his time on the road or sculpts for passengers, callously oblivious to the inconvenience he is causing them and other road users.

40 years later today we must sit through annoying levels of music on these vehicles or the mindless rants of some half literate DJ, even though the rules forbid the playing of music.

For 40 years our government sat by while we complained about all these things and did absolutely nothing. Except to set up a moribund body called The Transport Authority.

And what does this authority do about the issues related here. It prescribes uniforms for the PSV people every 18 months. Perhaps if they look nice they will also behave nice. So passionate does this authority feel about its uniforms that it is now demanding that the PSV workers who are not their employees wear its crest on their shirts and even prescribe in from whom they should be bought.

It's a clear case of treating pneumonia with Vicks. Has it never occurred to this authority that they need to have undercover inspectors ride on buses and report any deviations from the laws and regulations.

How else would they hope to ensure compliance - you are a regulatory body, you can't just meet and talk, you have to be in the field. So the powers that be have apparently conceded that they lack the will to rein in a wayward element of the society.

We need no further proof of that than the fact that they now looking to the owners of the vehicles to do it for them.

A strange notion is now being given currency that the owners should pay for the lawlessness of their least partners who are not their employees - So if I own a PSV and my driver is a multiple offender. The suggestion is that my license should be revoked. Peter should pay for all.

It seems not to matter that I am at home watching television when Paul chose to drive through a red light and commit other infractions of the law, neither does it matter it seems that a judicial officer before whom Paul would have appeared knew of his numerous convictions but instead of confiscating his license put him back out on the road as a fit and proper person to drive.

Leave it to the owners. I wonder whether this principle holds for drivers of transport board buses who might be guilty of multiple offenses. Would the general manager of the board be held liable.

The issues at stake here will not be solved by passing the buck. That buck stops at the government and the justice system. They need to step up to the plate and do the job for which they are paid.

When a man comes before you with 25 convictions take away his license don't put him back out on the streets and then look to owners to do your job. The owner has no responsibility for policing the laws of Barbados, that is the job of the police and the government.

The transportation system in this country has been like a millstone around the necks of Barbadians as if the troubles with the PSVs aren't enough we have a state run service called The Transport Board which since 1955 has been struggling to offer an efficient service in a country the size of a matchbox.

This year will be the sixty fourth anniversary of that service and what have they got to show for it - long waits at bus stops for buses you're not sure will come. In an age of computer information technology, the complete lack of any system by which commuters can know the status of a particular service as happens elsewhere in the world.

Not even an efficient telephone information service. And the bus terminal with airport like announcements about challenges with this service and that service. And they say we are among the most intelligent people in the world.

Truth is we're not anywhere near there and we should have the balls to admit it and turned to one of the countries where transportation operates like clockwork and ask for help.

Let us swallow our pride and go to one of the developed countries and let them send down a white man or two to teach us about public transport. The people of Barbados will be better off for it.

This is what happen when you allowed a bunch of Wild boys to take matters in their own hands for so many years. Over and over the powers that be keep talking with little or no action. Law & order is a joke for this group for some now. This is a perfect example that others will follow. Drugs and Guns along with dope all over the place. Soon Barbados will make headline news World wide.

A subculture that was left to grow. A nasty one at that. Do what they want and when they, want. This is why the government need buses and a system that work. Instead of doing a service they continue to do a disservice.
Instead of complimenting the board as and moving the passengers speedily,they only speed.
The same government buses they don’t want at daytime are the ones to save them at night when the majority finish work at 8. Loud,obnoxious,unmannerly and mainly ignorant.
The main thread is their hygiene.
Government need to get tough with them .If no one wants to insure them because they are trouble what. We have too many people that are wrong and those who know better but are using them saying something else.
The passengers need to do like they do for the board bustops and no tracks. See what their excuses are.